Schmidly: Attorney, teacher, leader

Sunday

ASHEBORO — Stephen Scott Schmidly, who died Friday after a battle with cancer, made his presence felt in many ways and many places. He was 64.

ASHEBORO — Stephen Scott Schmidly, who died Friday after a battle with cancer, made his presence felt in many ways and many places. He was 64.

An attorney in Asheboro since 1987, Steve, as he was known, chaired the Randolph County Democratic Party for many years and served as chair of the county elections board.

He coached the Asheboro High School Mock Trial team for years, including in 2000, when the students finished second in national competition.

He also coached baseball — many teams and many age groups — in Randleman. Most recently, he was a coach for the Randleman Middle School team, which won three county championships in five years.

"First and foremost his love was teaching people," said Frank Wells, an Asheboro attorney

who was an associate in an Asheboro law firm when Schmidly joined the practice in the late-1980s.

Wells said Schmidly was also a team leader, whether in a legal setting, on a baseball diamond, mentoring high school students, or spearheading a successful effort to legalize the sale of alcohol in Asheboro.

"He put together teams and got the best out of the teams," Wells said.

In 2008, Schmidly and his daughter Brooke asked members of the Asheboro City Council to allow residents to vote on the alcohol issue, which had been soundly rejected in 1965, 1977, 1985 and 1994. They led an effort called the Committee for the Future of Asheboro.

"The timing is critically important, in our view, for the city," he said in an interview before the vote. "We need to do this and do it now — otherwise we can run the risk of development and growth we believe will come going somewhere other than Asheboro."

He said he respected the decision of anyone who chose not to drink alcohol.

"The passage of the referendum," he said, "doesn’t force a single person to take a drink."

A year after resounding approval of legal sales by Asheboro voters, Schmidly said he had kept his ear to the ground, on the lookout for problems related to the legal sale of alcohol in the city.

The thing of which he was most proud was the uptick in activity in downtown Asheboro. He recalled sitting on a bench on Sunset Avenue across from two new establishments, The Flying Pig restaurant and Lumina Wine and Beer. He said he watched as 100 people, and maybe 200, came and went, talking and laughing, as a musician played on Lumina’s outdoor deck.

"It was just so refreshing," he said. "Everybody was having such a good time. I didn’t see any stumbling drunks. There was a place for folks to get together and do things."

On the legal front, Wells said it was amazing to watch how quickly Schmidly could grasp the details of a case. Once, Schmidly learned more about the ins and outs of a case while they were traveling to Buenos Aires to visit a client than Wells had gleaned in months of working on the case.

Wells also recalled watching as Schmidly and another attorney took up the case of a man who had been convicted of a horrific rape and murder. The man had been sentenced to death and then won an appeal and a new trial.

Schmidly did not doubt the man’s guilt. But he could — and did — look for the good in everyone. He "found decency" in his client, Wells said, that others might have ignored — or never looked for — and worked hard to convey the man’s humanity to a jury. The man was sentenced to life.

"He worked harder on that case than I had ever seen him work on anything — and harder on that case that I had ever seen a lawyer work on anything," Wells said.

The lessons of the first great capital trial lawyer he ever worked with remain with him today.

Dick Roose and Schmidly had been law partners since 1993.

"The thing that got him excited," Roose said, "was a big case with great legal challenges. It wasn’t the money. It wasn’t the glory. He absolutely loved that great challenging case coming in here."

Roose said Schmidly had a favorite saying about such a challenge: "This case is just like bear meat — the more you chew it, the bigger it gets."

Tony Wright met Schmidly nearly a decade ago when he had traveled to Florida to broadcast games of the United Eagles, who were playing in the Palomino League’s Southeast Regional Tournament, for the fans back home in Asheboro via 1260AM WKXR.

He did not have a sidekick, a color announcer to complement his play-by-play call.

Schmidly, who was an assistant coach for the United Eagles, volunteered to help.

"Steve was a baseball man and he had a passion for coaching, for being around the kids, for broadcasting games," Wright said Saturday.

A couple of years later, when Wright needed help in the broadcast booth covering high school baseball, he remembered that stint by Schmidly and called to ask if he would like to reprise the role. Schmidly did.

Wright would show up for games with a store-bought scorebook. Schmidly always created his own before each game on a legal pad, meticulous about the details.

In the mental image Wright has of Schmidly, he is smiling and extending his hand for a hearty handshake.

"Seems like he was full of energy," Wright said. "Full of life."

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